Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Stock Watcher's Thread / Pix of the Week (POW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stock Watcher who wrote (3773)	3/7/1999 2:21:00 PM
From: hoffy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 52051

PLC news. They are a leader in TMR. Sunday March 7, 9:45 am Eastern Time Laser treatment for heart safe, effective -study WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) - A new approach to easing chest pain, which involves drilling tiny holes into the heart, is both safe and effective, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday. The idea is to let blood reach areas of the heart starved for oxygen by blocked arteries, although doctors still are not quite sure how it works. Normally the procedure, known as transmyocardial revascularization, or TMR, requires open-heart surgery. But Dr.Stephen Oesterle of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and colleagues tested a less-invasive method, which uses a catheter to get the laser inside the chest. The new technology, developed by Sunnyvale, California-based CardioGenesis Corporation (Nasdaq:CGCP - news), is called percutaneous myocardial revascularization or PMR. ''We set out several years ago to challenge the necessity of doing open-heart surgery on these patients,'' Oesterle said in a statement. ''We felt that we could actually get at the damaged heart muscle from inside the heart using a percutaneous, catheter-based system and an optical fiber to deliver laser energy.'' For the study, 221 patients with Class III or IV angina, orchest pain, that had not been treatable by angioplasty or bypass surgery were given either drugs or drugs plus PMR. ''All treated patients completed the procedure successfully. There were no procedural deaths,'' the researchers told a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans. Oesterle said he and his colleagues at 12 other hospitals made on average 12 to 18 little holes in the patients' hearts. The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says most of the 150,000 Americans with advanced coronary artery disease have some degree of angina. PLC Systems Inc.(AMEX:PLC - news), of Milford, Massachusetts, Eclipse Surgical Technologies Inc.(Nasdaq:ESTI - news), of Sunnyvale, California, and U.S. Surgical Corp (Montreal:TYC.M - news), of Norwalk, Connecticut have also developed TMR systems.